No, this is not a rant against the game. And no, I don't consider myself an expert player who's been tragically thwarted by the official stats. I'm an average player and freely admit it.
Rather, I'm amused by so many people quoting the official stats as if they have any significance. I've even noticed people judging posters by their win/loss record, as if that record carries some great weight. As many have pointed out, the stat tracking system is bugged right now. Host disconnects don't count, etc.
But even if the stat tracking weren't bugged, the stats wouldn't be that useful in terms of judging someone's skill. Why?
1. If you play with PUGs as opposed to premades, you'll have more relatively losses. Doesn't matter how good you are, you will lose if your teammates are uncoordinated or are not good. You have a higher chance of someone just flaking out with a PUG.
2. If you are a creative player and are willing to try new builds and strategies, you'll have more losses. Part of the price of experimenting is willing to take the risk of more losses as you try unconventional strategies.
3. If you like high quality games and play mostly premade vs. premade, you'll have more losses. You will be fighting highly coordinated team games where everyone is on vent. People are likely to split up teams so the teams are evenly matched, so your win/loss record will break closer to 50/50.
Anyway, my advice: just forget about the stats . The only way you can tell how good someone is to play against or with them. If you want a high win %, just play with some folks in Vent and beat up on PUGs. You will not only face PUGs, but probably PUGs who are mostly newbies. Most experienced players can sense when they're facing a premade in the lobby (there are tell-tale signs), and will likely leave before the game starts. Consequently, premades who face randoms often end up playing new players who don't know any better and have no idea that they're about to hit by a truck. But trust me, winning like that really isn't that fun compared to a close, even match, even if you end up losing it.
See my post about premades, not a very good post overall. Pretty much just wahhhhhhhhh I have a low record heres an excuse because everyone else has friends. Yes, stats are meaningless, but it's not because of premades, its because of glitches and bugs. Yes I have a 95% win record, so I can say that.
I'm not crying about anything. My intent was to stop people crying about stats.
If anything, you prove my point: you have a 95% win record because you play with friends all of the time. Nothing wrong with playing with friends, but there is a causal relationship. *shrugs*
We have random players on our team over 50% of the game, so what is your point? How do you account for that rogue element? We win because we play smarter and communicate. You lose because you don't even attempt teamplay. This is a TEAM game, not a SOLO game.
You never considered the fact maybe I'm just BETTER than you? Is that not a possibility?
These aren't expereinced players, these are the nubs you DON'T want on your team.
stats dont matter because they dont work, if you wanted to group up you could, so if someone complains about stats based on that, it's a bit uncalled for - they could just do pantheon then when everyone's chance of getting with nubs is pretty equal
ps- when you say stats are meaningless wickedbear and then say your record - you seem pretentious and dumb, why point something out that doesnt matter?
LOL LEET RECORD THAT DOESNT MATTER
wow, rereading your posts, damn, you sir, are one asshat of a person, attacking the op for no reason
Simple, you still have your friend on your team. The communication between you 2 encourages the other player to communicate as well.
And if your teammate doesn't want to communicate? Excuse me if I don't feel like having a long chat with a random person I just "met."
You never considered the fact that being a premade gave you an advantage? Is that not a possibility?
No, these are people who like to play on equal terms, not handicapped. And before you say anything, let me point out that I have nothing against premades as long as you tell people you're a premade.
Anyways, stats are indeed useless. Not only are there exploits, the stat recording just plain doesn't work.
My point in saying my stats was to agree, that they don't matter. I would figure somone with high stats would be AGAINST the grain, not with it. You're obviously smart enough to read though.
Must be nice to live in fantasy land where everyplayer I meet listens to me, as opposed to the people you meet. Dellusional much? I get just as many unco-operative players as you do sir.
I've played these types of games with my friends for hte last 7 years. I'll say this; playing with my friends has not increased my chance of winning. I won more games playing DOTA inhouses than I ever did with my friends. Thats right, with random people. Just because you KNOW somone and talk to them, doesn't make that player good, and put you at a disadvantage. All things being equal, yes, friendship, COULD increase the methods of communication like ventrilo, but thats only marginal.
Bottom line is this, I play with my friends to have a good time. We aren't always strategizing so much as just playing having fun. Like every other joe bob out there. It is the fact that they are better players who work together that make us win, not the fact we know eachother. There is nothing that prevents random people from having the same attributes as my friends. In RoC DOTA, there sure wasn't. This, "premade" nonsense seems to have spawned off of the abomination that is TFT DotA.
While yes pre-mades have an advantage, both teams being random is very rarely going to be equal terms, one bad random is a huge handicap.
Also yes stats are FUBAR'd, don't trust anything they say.
LOL @ Wickedbear for completely unnecessary flaming and completely missing the point. Shame you cannot add a numbskull point to peoples records.
The guy is just saying that stats are useless and they are useless. Nothing to do with the OPs skills, he is not crying about his stats, he simply finds it funny that people get so mad about them.
Wow there's a whole lot of stupid on here today that certainly can't read isn't there. I said yes, stats are pointless, and I agreed[with the OP]. I also pointed out 2 out of THREE of his reasons were becuase of premades. The real problem with stats is buggy games more than anything else. If you consider the amount of bugs this game has, it instantly makes them worthless. That's all that really needed to be said.
God forbid I refute a relevant point the OP made? And i'm the one getting flamed? I thought discussion forums were meant for exactly that, of discussion. Not blind agreeance.
You still have your friend, so I don't see your point. In a 3v3 you have the possibility of having 1 unco-operative teammate, compared to a team of 3 unco-operative players.
The thing that prevents random people from having the same attributes as your friends is that they aren't friends. I'm not saying that you don't have the right to play with your friends. But at the same time, I have the right to not want to play against a team that has played together with a random team. And the difference between Demigod and DotA is that DotA(presumably, since I've never played it) has some sort of friends system. Demigod doesn't have that yet.
[quote who="IllegalDustbin" reply="7" id="2283824"]While yes pre-mades have an advantage, both teams being random is very rarely going to be equal terms, one bad random is a huge handicap.
Fair enough, potential to be equal then.
EDIT: Quote function broke.
Premade do give you ahn advantage. Just talking with people is an enourmous advantage. Yes randoms can't talk too, but in general I consider them deaf mute and dyslexic beyond the occasional "hi".
WickedBear, it's just a simple fact of the matter that playing with your friend will make you likelier to succeed than playing with a fully random team. It won't mean you'll always win, but having a friend who knows what you do well and what you do poorly and (due to experience (if they're not just a godawful gamer)) how to back you up most effectively will put you leagues ahead of a genuine pick up group.
Of course it's still totally necessary to communicate and strategise with the other members of the team, but this goes without saying. However, being in voice communication with your friend and being able to discuss strategies and builds that complement one another before the match as opposed to right in the middle of the fray will still put you on a huge advantage. For instance, consider the following, my friend and I are active Lord of the Rings Online players. He picked a tanking class with massive armour ratings and aggro abilities and, in response, I picked a glass cannon H/Dot (Heal and Damage Over Time) to compliment his playstyle. By no means can we just soar around Ettenmoors (the grouped Player versus Player zone) destroying anything that crosses our path, but the chances of us winning, with our wealth of experience on one anothers' playstyles and how best to support one another, are significantly increased and it's the exact same in Demigod.
I can always be sure that there'll be a recipient of my Bramble Shield that'll know exactly how far they can push it before it breaks and how they can get another one. You'd be amazed the sheer number of times I've heard on PuGs "Wot item r u using for the shield" from the recipient of one of my buffs. Furthermore, I know that my friend has a bit of a tendancy to red mist so when I see that he's about to chase a Regulus through a mine field etc I can shout out over Gtalk "You're red misting dude" and snap him out of it. We've known each other for so long that he'll be fine with this. If I try a similar thing on a PuG then 9/10 the player will take it as an insult and ignore me (the number of "F**k you, if you helped me this wouldn't happen" style insults from a PuG who's just charged through a mine field and into a tower despite my unheeded warnings are blackly amusing).
So don't get all offended when these facts are brought before you and especially don't start cursing someone out just because they raise a valid point that makes you feel like a cheat.
Lol I don't feel like a cheat at all. My point is simply this, most "PuG"'s if we want to call them that, are capable of the same communication. Yes the odd's MAY be against them co-operating, but that is marginal. It is all in how you talk to people. I have one friend I play with, who goes OUT OF HIS WAY to communicate to people not on our vent server. I tell him its futile, and you can't teach an idiot whos unwilling to learn anything, and he OFTEN proves me wrong.
last night we played, me and Char, against the SAME regulus. It was his third game. He joined back every game he played and progressivly got better and so did his teams organization by taking our advice. On the fourth game he played against us, it was so close we won through a lucky cap lock. Theres NOTHING that stops PuG's from having the same foothold but the mentality that EACH member brings to that team. It's the PuG's mentality that needs to change, not the existance of people having friends.
On that note, I will concede they have an advantage, but only because of the UNWILLINGNESS for the community to change it's habbits of "just leave me alone and let me do my thing". But if THAT is the style that the community adopts, why do they play such a team based game. That, is my problem with this whole scenario.
PS: it is not very UNCOMMON for us to play against very organized, "pugs". You can certainly tell when they are communicating.
And no, DotA doesn't really have a friends list to the point where it was easy to fight premades.
This is nonsense. Playing with your friends allows you to learn how they play and their tendencies. They will do things without you having to tell them to and you will also know what they are doing without having to ask them.
And they'll also ALWAYS listen to you where a random player might not.
The truth comes out. RANDOM PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE VENT. Vent is such a monstrous advantage over text, and yet you blame the "nubs" for their lack of skill?
Not that there's anything wrong with this as long as everyone has the same playing field. This is why I never used vent even when I had friends on the same team in Dota.
I don't have the time to go "out of my way" to communicate with someone in the middle of a game. I'll try to, but if they're being stubborn I don't have the time to convince them otherwise. Also, you're using vent, which is an obvious and huge advantage.
So you always give the enemy team advice? Bravo to that Regulus but most people feel like joining a game where they have a chance to win, not lose several times.
If you're not exagerating then they were probably premades who joined your game.
I meant using the friends list to make it easier to play as a premade, thus increasing the chances of premades going against each other.
EDIT: Damn you Infinite, you ninja.....
Actually one reason was that PUG is at a disadvantage to a premade, which is pretty much 100% provable fact. In the OPs argument this means that a lot of good players who don't have pre-mades will have lower ranking.
The second reason was that players playing Pre-made vs Pre-made will lose more. This means that a lot of good players who play in premades can also have a lower ranking when they choose their opponents. This is supporting Pre-Made players who play in leagues, not against PUGs, so your flaming was unneeded.
Most of my losses in custom have been due to fighting in bad PUGs. I turned to Pantheon and have an almost 100% win ratio, I have a loss from a drop. So that means that either
A) people playing in Pantheon are all really bad (could be quite true)
B. playing in a matchmaking service where Premade is impossible evens up teams and that I am not that bad a player
C) that there are no bugs in Pantheon, which in custom are causing the majority of my losses
Personally, I go for a little of A and B. A lot of hardcore players are playing in premades and so will be in custom, not Pantheon. Never playing against a Pre-Made makes chances of winning a lot higher.
Leading back to the original argument that the stats are pretty useless as determining a players skill. The biggest factor at the moment would be that pre-made groups (even when you meet another good player randomly and team up with them next game) in custom are at a huge advantage to pick ups.
Losses to bugs are actually minimal, if they were a factor, surely your stats would reflect that, unless you are suddenly impervious to bugs and have the holy grail of Demigod clients.
Now there are no problems with Pre-Mades per se, I wish I had the time to find one all the time. However, Stardock does need to take on the fact that players need better matchmaking. Pre-Made game queuing/clan matchmaking and solo player ranking match-ups for starters (which I believe they have and hopefully will be with us shortly).
So you have a great win record and play mainly with a friend on vent and 1 random ally against random opponents who are not using vent. I think these facts speak for themselves.
Look, I have nothing against premades. I play them myself from time to time. I do find that premades vs. premades and PUGs vs. PUGs make for better games than premades vs. PUGs, but to each his own. I recognize that the game isn't set up right now to coordinate premade vs. premade games easily. (The only time I can get premades vs. premades is when my clan has internal matches.)
My only point is this: to the extent you are evaluating win/loss records of premades who play against PUGs, you are introducting a statistical distortion that has nothing to do with skill. Trying to argue that PUGs have the same advantages or on a level playing field with premades is silly.
The flip side, though, is that if you play as a PUG, you have to be willing to take the inevitable losses that occur with PUGs. Yes, your ally might go afk or leave. Yes, you might run into a premade with vent. That's part of the risk of going PUG, which is why it's best just to forget about stats and have fun.
All these people talking about vent, get with the times, use xfire! You can get any random person in your voice chat just by having their name. You don't have to minimize either.
I've joined voice chat via it with randoms a few times, although I guess sometimes there's still the language barrier giving people advantages.
Oh god how I hate xfire....
Wrong. Sure, stats are meaningless within a certain band. For example, someone with a 65% win rate v. someone with a 60% win rate. That 5% can just be noise. But when I PUG against a premade, if my teammate has a 25% win rate, I leave before launch. Someone with a 25% win rate is a bad player, no matter how you cut it.
Win rate is not a perfect indicator of skill, but it's not completely unrelated - and it's the best we have.
@ WickedBear I don't understand why this would be confusing. On average, people play better with people they know better. You pick an average NBA team, then go and pick a random 12 people from the rest of the NBA and put them together, I'm pretty confident the team that's trained and played with each other will have the advantage, if only on the simple fact of communication. The PUG team would have to develop a communication system during the game. Good players will develop it faster then worse ones, of course.
I can't believe you would say that there's no advantage to premades. You said you argue against #1 and #3 of the OP's points.
OP's point #1 indicates that if you do PUGs, you'll be more likely to have BAD players that you can't communicate with. If you have a friend that sucks, at least he'll listen to you. Not so lucky with PUGs. Are you saying that this is not true?
OP's point #3 is pretty obvious, that if you are a good player and continually pit yourself against those of the same skill as you (usually only available in premade vs premade instances), then your stats will reflect more towards 50/50 than if you played with random groups and get a 75/25 win/loss. Hence stats can be skewed depending on the habits of the player. I think this point is pretty valid.
So, both of the OP's points about premade are valid assertions, imo.
Check out the 2004 Olympic games. Full of NBA players, lost to teams like Lithuania and Argentina. The first time a team full of professional players loses to amateurs!
what are you guys talking about? just because he plays UB and rolls with a friend who healbots him with sedna everygame is not the reason for his 19-1 record.Chemisty had nothing to do with it...hes just that damn good!!
/sarcrasm off
Well, if my friend ever gets this game (God help me if he reads this) I'm in big trouble as far as premades, cause he's bad, really bad, were talk'in "forgetting to look at his heathbar" bad. Random Pugs are much safer for me. In fact, if you see me hosting, and you think I'm setting up a premmade, please, by all means, let my friend play on your team to be fair to you.
As for stats, I have NEVER cared about stats in my life, but, out of curiosity, I looked at mine, and it shows 100% losses. But I don't have 100% losses, let alone that few games played. Between the RQs, hosts quitting, games not being recorded, and stats not recording properly (plus my true losses), I hope no one cares about stats either before deciding to play with me. I do wish stats were a bit more "accurate" for that reason.
If you think friends will ALWAYS listen to you, and not feel insulted when you tell them they should have done X, you couldn't be more wrong. One of my friends in particular refuses to take any advice I say or coordinate at all, despite my obvious skill advantage over him. Play some games with me, you'll see.
Vent is not an evil monster. Adapt to change or it's your own fault for being at a disadvantage. There is countless ways to communicate over voice for free that is just as effective. Public vent servers are always a choice as well. One of my buddies actually invites Pug's onto his and changes the password weekly. I don't do this on mine, but it works for some.
I think the whole problem with staticics has nothing to do with PUG'ing in general though. If you're playing to learn, your record will reflect that and get better over time. There is no large inhouse community that would prevent this from happening at the moment. If it does develope, than alot of your points would become valid. As it stands currently, they do provide SOME sense of scale for how you are doing, although it is not close to perfect. My 95% wont stay that high, and its hugely inflated because of the low number of games i've played ~20. Yes, though that statistics should never matter, and people who bother to look up stats before they even click ready need to have their head examined.
I wanted more of a premade discussion out of this thread when I got the replies that I did, and I hope I made some valid concerns to those that insist on PUG's.
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